Microsoft hits a Home Run with Windows 7!!

The New version of Windows, Windows 7 has recently been released for Production by Microsoft Corp. It's been three years since Microsoft introduced their last version of Windows Vista, which was not as popular.

I have a feeling that tons of people may upgrade to Win7 from Win XP. This time it seems as if Microsoft has really listened to customer feedback.

Windows 7 seems to work faster than Vista, and application windows seem to open up a lot snappier and Win7 seems to run as well with lesser system resources, such as memory, and slower CPU's and Netbooks.

The Taskbar is new and improved, and let's you pin Application Icons onto it. The task bar has combined ‘launching programs’ with 'switching between programs’, resulting in a single menu with bigger icons. There is also a JumpList with each icon – akin to a start menu - so you can open a recent word document right from this JumpList.

One of the most exciting features is Windows multi-touch. This allows you to move, resize, rotate, two-finger zoom, flick and pan objects by simply touching the LCD Screen.

Win 7 has backward compatibility with Win XP, and Vista, so that older device drivers, applications, and hardware, will run in Win 7 right off the bat.

The Libraries feature, organizes file type folders that show you all files of a particular type in one view – Ex: all music files across all directories in a ‘Music Library’.

There is also less user account control (UAC), which was quite a significant annoyance on Windows Vista machines. (Top 25 Features of Windows7)

Windows Vista Revisited

Windows Vista was a good operating system introduced by Microsoft, three years ago. Now some of you might wonder why do I even bother to talk about Win Vista, seeing that we've heard of so many problems with Vista, and we are not using it on campus.

Well, all our Business and Info. System Labs are on Win Vista, and a lot of folks who have bought newer laptops in the last couple of years have Win Vista.

In my personal opinion, I feel that Win Vista simply had a bad rap. Sure there were a number of annoyances, like frequent UAC security prompts. We also have to keep in mind that when any new operating system is introduced, it will have some problems simply because some of the older hardware drivers have not been updated by the vendors.

Also Vista needs better system resources like at least 2 gigs of memory, probably a Dual Core CPU system, and a more powerful video card to run properly on any machine. Trying to run Vista on older machines is not a good idea.

Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated GUI and visual style dubbed Windows Aero, a redesigned search function, multimedia tools including Windows DVD maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems.

Vista aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network, using peer-to-peer technology to simplify sharing files and digital media between computers and devices. Windows Vista includes version 3.0 of the .NET framework, allowing software developes to write applications without traditional Windows APIs.

Microsoft's Windows Vista has been able to improve the state of security in the Windows operating system, and make it less vulnerable to viruses worms, and malware.